Albania Country Info - Europe

Description and Basic Information

Albania with its capital Tirana is located in Europe (Southeastern Europe, bordering the Adriatic Sea and Ionian Sea). It covers some 28,749 square kilometres (slightly smaller than Maryland) with 3,619,000 citizens. Albanian, Greek and Modern (1453-) are the official languages spoken in Albania (consider regional differences). Macedonia, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia are bordering countries.

Albania is a small country in the Balkans. The relative majority of the people in Albania are of Muslim heritage (70-80%), Albania also has a large number of religious minorities (mainly Albanian Orthodox and Roman Catholic-the largest Christian minorities in Europe along with Bosnia and Herzegovina). Traditional Albanian culture honors the role and person of the guest. In return for this place of honor, respect is expected from the guest. Albanians enjoy the long walks the city streets, drinking coffee, and among the younger generations, partaking in nightlife activities such as cafe lounging and dancing. It's an extremely poor country by European standards.

Pictures from Capital (Tirana)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Albania

The topography features mostly mountains and hills with small plains along coast. The average density of population is about 125 per km². The climate in Albania can be described as mild temperate with cool, cloudy, wet winters, hot, clear, dry summers, interior being cooler and wetter. Potential natural disasters are destructive earthquakes or tsunamis occur along southwestern coast, floods or drought.

To reach someone in Albania dial +355 prior to a number. There are 363,000 installed telephones. And there are 4,162,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".al". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 220V - 50Hz. The following list are the 12 regions/states in Albania we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Albanian population grew at a rate of 0.56% (or by 20,421 citizens). With 20,713 deaths and 56,321 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.97%. -15,187 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Albania: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.